[sunday meditations]

INTERMISSION: 1 PETER 1.1-12

Having examined the first twelve verses of 1 Peter, it would be good to step back and see how they all fit together from a bird’s-eye point of view. In verses 1-2, Peter identifies both himself and those to whom he is writing: the Christians in Asia Minor. His letter, as we saw in the introduction, was written to encourage and strengthen the eastern Christians as western persecution threatens to spread like wildfire throughout the Roman Empire. Peter begins this letter of encouragement and strengthening by focusing the Christians’ perspectives: instead of focusing on this current life, and thus on life in this present evil age, Christians are to focus on the future age, the consummation of God’s kingdom. This, the Christian hope (including the resurrection of the dead, glorification, and the inheritance of a new heavens and new earth), energizes and strengthens spiritual muscle; but if the Christians are wholly focused upon the current state-of-affairs, they’ll miss out on all of this.

Peter’s brief mentioning of several key eschatological themes serves as a reminder rather than an instruction to the Asia Minor Christians. Peter isn’t telling them anything they don’t know; rather, he’s reminding them of what they already know, and urging them to focus on that. The Christian hope, which is so often taken as a tidbit of Christian doctrine, or side-lined in lieu of more “important” matters (such as the order of salvation), is a defining characteristic of Christian belief, identity, and praxis.

In terms of belief, Christians can be identified by the way that they understand not just the present but also the future. Christian theism teaches that history is going somewhere, and the “where” is the total victory of God over evil and the renewal of all things, human beings included. The Christian message has just as much to say about the future as it does the past and present, and these different “phases” in history are intimately connected and informed by all the others. This isn’t sideline theology or just another aspect of the Christian faith; it’s integral to Christian belief! In 1 Peter 3.15, Peter tells the Christians to be prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks about the hope that is in them. Hope is so integral to the Christian faith that pagans know Christians for their hope, and are intrigued by it.

In terms of identity, the Christian hope locates Christians on the map of history. There’s no ambiguity regarding where we stand on the “divine timetable.” Christians are identified in the New Testament as those who have already participated in God’s future, by virtue of participating in Christ’s death and resurrection, so that they are “new creations”. Christians have been “spiritually resurrected” in the present, and this spiritual resurrection is no less real than our future bodily resurrections. Christians ought to find their identities not in the existential morass drenching our culture but in the fact that we have died with Christ and have been raised from the dead (spiritually-speaking), and with the promise of future bodily resurrection, we are to live as resurrected beings.

In terms of praxis (behavior), the future informs Christians on the right manner of living in the sense that Christians are to live in the present as if the future has already arrived. Christians are to put into practice, in this present evil age, “kingdom-living”, anticipating in word and deed and thought God’s complete and realized kingdom.

Again: Peter’s decision to focus on eschatology isn’t done at random, nor is it a clever little trick. It makes perfect sense. While eschatology has become, at least in some circles, merely a matter of interesting study, it should be integral to our belief, identity, and behavior as it was (or, at least, as St. Peter believed it should be) for the Christians in Asia Minor. Now, having given a panoramic view of the future, Peter demands that his readers/hearers not simply dismiss what he’s written as mere doctrinal peculiarities, but, rather, put it at the forefront of their minds and shape their thinking and living around it.